Refrigerant container for railway cars



Dec. 5, 1950 K. E. zElDLER REFRIGERANT coNTAINER FOR RAILWAY CARS Filed June 9, 1945 W//l k WWA '5% u lll/VVVVVV n NVENTOR. BY KURT EZEIDLEK,

Patented Dec. 5, 1950 REFRIGERANT CONTAINER FOR RAILWAY CARS Kurt E. Zeidler, Chicago, Ill., assignor to Standard Railway Equipment Manufacturing Company, Chicago, Ill., a corporation of Delaware Application llune 9, 1945, Serial No.'598,507

2 Claims.

This invention relates to the structure of containers for the refrigerant of railway refrigerator cars, and has particular reference to containers for such cars known as top bunker cars, where in the containers are located adjacent the roof and one wall of the car and under a hatch in the roof of the car through which said containers are serviced. A partition is located in spaced relation below the container and above the lading compartment, thereby defining a cooling compartment about said container. The lading is supported upon a foraminous floor spaced above the car oor to provide an air distributing space therebetween. Flues, preferably associated with the side walls of the car, communicate between the cooling compartment and said air distributing space to provide a path for the circulation of said air. Said path is from the cooling compartment downwardly through the aforemen-v tioned ues, through the distributing space, the foraminous floor and lading compartment of the cooling compartment, from whence the cycle is repeated.

Containers using ice or brine as the refrigerating medium are of the solid type having only overow and drain openings therein, other than the usual filling opening, when low temperatures are required for the commodities transported, but may be of the mesh type when only normal refrigeration is required, and carry about eight hundred to one thousand pounds of ice each so that they must be quite strong to resist the shifting forces and impact of such a volume of ice due to service movements of the car. Therefore, such container is usually reinforced by having stiffeners secured to the sides and bottom thereof and ordinarily such stiffeners are of angle iron construction.

To protect such containers from corrosion they are given a pickling bath in an acid solution suitable for the purpose to remove al] grease and dirt, and then are dipped in a bath of melted spelter. Obviously if any of the acid is left anywhere, as in a crack or crevice, when the tank is dipped in the spelter, the spelter would trap said acid, which acid would then continue to eat through the metal and cause failure of the tank. Furthermore, to save weight, the containers are made of light weight material, such as No. l2 gage, and must, therefore, be reinforced by strengthening members partially enveloping the container.

It is consequently the principal object of the invention to construct the container so that it may be entirely submerged in the acid bath and when removed therefrom all acid will drain from the tank, leaving all surfaces thereof clean, so that when said tank or container is then dipped in the hot spelter there will be no acid thereon to become trapped under the spelter to later destroy the material.

More specically it is an object of the invention to secure said reinforcing members to the container in normally slightly spaced relation thereto so that theV acid may drain freely from all surfaces thereof and the spelter may similarlyA contact all of said surfaces.

A further object is to construct said container of a material so that the bottom thereof is ilexible at least to the extent that when loaded with refrigerant that portion of the container under load will yield until it contacts the reinforcing member and is reinforced'or supported thereby. Y

It is still another object of the invention to provide a novel means of spacing said reinforcing members from said containers.

AA still further vobject of theinvention is to construct the tank so that the purlins which support the tank, between adjacent carlines are integral parts of the side walls of the tank.

Other objects and advantages of the inven- 'tion will appear in the following description thereof.

Referring to the accompanying drawing forming part of this application and wherein like reference characters indicate like parts.

Figure 1 is a vertical section through my irnproved refrigerant tank and the adjacent portions'oi` a refrigerator car showing the air circulating path. Y

Figure 2 is a partial side elevation of the refrigerant tank.

'Figure 3 is an enlarged detail of a portion of the tank and reinforcing member spacing means.

The general parts of the refrigerator car shown in Figure 1 are the insulated roof i; side wall 2; refrigerant container 3; hatch i through the roof for loading refrigerant into the container 3; side wall fines 5 and partition t positioned under the container but slightly spaced therefrom and extending from the upper end of the flue 5 to a point adjacent the longitudinal center of the car where said partition is provided with an upstanding baiile l. The refrigerant container 3 is preferably positioned below the roof and adjacent the upper part of the side wall 2 and there are a plurality of such containers longitudinally spaced on each side of the car, and, of course, there is a hatch 4 for each container for servicing the same. These containers are each designed to carry about one thousand pounds of ice when loaded, and, to save weight, are constructed of light material. They are supported by a pair of longitudinally extending channels l which form a part of the sides of said containers and which channels extend between and are secured at their ends to transverse carlines, not shown. Said channels I0 face outwardly and the Webs Il thereof form continuations of the side wall of the container, being welded, as at l2, thereto. Because of the light material of the containers, the heavy load of ice they carry, and the violent shifting and impact of the ice, due to service movements of the car, the containers must be reinforced.

Therefore, there are provided a plurality of stiiening members I4 of angle iron, shown as extending transversely across the outside bottom of the container and up the sides thereof to the channels i9 to which they are secured, as by welding indicated at I6. It will be noted that thesestiiening members i4 are secured in slightly spaced relation to the containers 3 by means of the spacer washers i3 welded, as at I9, to one Iiange of the members lil and the similar washer welded, as at 2l, to the side wall of the tank and through which the holding rivets 22 extend. rllhese washers are not welded to each other and their principal function is to provide easily, replaceable spacing means for securing the stiifening members in slightly spaced relation to the tanky so that when said tank is immersed in a pickling bath all pickling acid will completely drain therefrom when removed from said bath.

Similarly when said said tank is galvanized, as by hot dipping, when immersed in the melted spelter, said spelter may easily reach all surfaces of said tank and associated parts. If any acid should seep in between the spacing members and not drain therefrom, and consequently be trapped therein by the galvanizing, the only corrosion would be in the contacting surfaces of the spacing means and not in the container nor stiffener. This distance is but about of an inch and provides room for the acid of the pickling bath to completely drain away from the tank when removed from the bath. Furthermore, the tank or container is constructed of light material and consequently when loaded with the refrigerant the bottom of the container will yield with the load imposed thereon until it contacts and is supported by the members l 4.

The cover for the tank or container is shown at 25 and is bolted or otherwise secured, as at 26, to the upper anges of the channels lil. A filling opening is provided through the cover which registers with the hatch opening in Ythe car roof and which opening is provided with a reinforcing frame 21 shown as bolted to the ilanged edges of theopening.

The accompanying drawings illustrate the preferred, form of the invention, though it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the exact details of construction shown and described, as it is obvious that various modifications thereof, within the scope of the claims, will occur to persons skilled in the art.

I claim:

l. A refrigerant container for a railway refrigerator car, said container including a bottom and side walls, a stilener underlying the bottom and extending upwardly adjacent said side Walls ofsaid container, spacer means secured and sealed to said stiffener, spacer means secured and sealed to said side walls of the container in alignment with said iirst mentioned spacer means, and means passing through said stiifener, container and both spacer means therebetween for Securing said container and stiiener in spaced relation, whereby when said container is immersed within and removed from a pickling acid bath all pickling acid will drain therefrom and when immersed in a spelter bath the spelter may freely reach all surfaces of the container and stiifener.

2. A refrigerant container for use in a railway refrigerator car, said container comprising a bottom, spaced apart side and end walls, a pair of spaced apart purlins forming part of said spaced apart side walls, a plurality of spaced U- shaped stiifeners each underlying the bottom of said container and extending upwardly adjacent the sides of said container and secured at their ends to said purlins to support said container under load, spacer means positioned at spaced points between and secured and sealed to said U- shaped stieners, spacer means aligned with said irst mentioned spacer means and secured and sealed to said container, and fastening means passing through the stiffener, both spacer means and the container, whereby to eecure :aid parts together and to maintain said container in spaced relation to said stifeners.

KURT E. ZEIDLER.

CES CITED The following references are of record in the le of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 126,545 Hebden May 7, 1872 562,176 Fischer June 16, 1896 769,762 McClellon Sept. 13, 1904 935,943 Stoelting Oct. 5, 1909 963,889 Goodwin July 12, 1910 1,233,632 'Winkler July 17, 1917 1,526,355 McGov/en Feb. 17, 1925 1,891,518 Wright Dec. 20, 1932 2,296,899 Bonsall Sept. 29, 1942 2,305,645 Sweeley et al Dec. 22, 1942 2,316,755 Baillie Apr. 20, 1943 2,401,606 Brown June 4, 1946 FOREIGN PATENTS Number Country Date 25,290 France Oct. 3, 1922 

